


being alive

by benito



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 07:35:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19825498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benito/pseuds/benito
Summary: there is something unique to the thrill of passion.





	being alive

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leomundstinyhut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leomundstinyhut/gifts).



> reupload because i wasn’t satisfied with the original and didn’t have time to go in and edit it

It is through each hand on his shoulder that he feels his heart beat.

Through each word of approval that he feels his mind race, through each wandering eye that he feels his hands tremble. It is through this man’s presence, the proximity to his own, that Caleb feels the once lost sensation of being alive.

He has friends, he knows; people who care for his well being. For safety, he often reasons, in the solitude of night; for the comfort of numbers, the knowledge of someone there for protection. For means to an end, a token to be played when the odds are no longer in their favor.

Perhaps out of sentimentality, in the eyes of a few. A different kind of love, one born of trust, of mutual respect. Out of friendship, even. This love was appreciated; very much so, to Caleb.

But there is something unique to the thrill of passion.

Unrequited, in this form, as love would always be, but strong, nonetheless, flowing through his veins as one with the magic that thrummed beneath his fingertips. It is a force of nature that rivals the gods themselves, a source of power unrivaled in its truest form.

This is because of the truth of its existence; the truth of love, and how it manifests.

To love a man is its own form of freedom.

To love a man, a wonderful man, is a new world to discover.

But it dwells deeper than our heart, runs warmer than our blood. Love, unbothered, undisturbed, grows in our veins, festers in our stomach, spills with our blood. It escapes through our tears, rips through our screams, and burns through our minds.

Love, like any need for survival, only satisfies in moderation.

This, perhaps, is what makes it so dangerous of a force.

Caleb cannot love in moderation; nobody can.

You can drink only enough water to keep you alive, eat only enough food to keep you satisfied.

You cannot love only enough to keep your feet moving.

You cannot love only enough to keep the butterflies fluttering.

You cannot stop when you find it unreturned.

He can try as he might to stop reading into each touch of bare skin, try to avoid losing himself in the depth of each gaze, but such a man as Caleb, so unfamiliar with love in this form, can only do so much to combat its wrath.

The pain is not unpleasant, not as torturous as those he’s known.

Most pain, Caleb has come to know, can be suppressed enough to bear through experience.

The pain that comes with the act of love is a deeper pain. It is a sickeningly sweet sort of rot, a bleed that Caleb has come to find more pleasurable than most forms of pain.

Perhaps it is because such pains, though they hurt, do not show on his skin.

Or perhaps it is the fact that to be lovesick means to have loved.

Perhaps, Caleb thinks, as whiskey burns its way down his throat, some forms of pain were pleasurable enough to seek out again.

His eyes follow Fjord, who’s gaze falls somewhere else, and smiles at the warmth of whiskey that begins to bloom in his stomach.

Yes, to love a man is its own form of freedom.

To love a man is to know you are capable of love.

**Author's Note:**

> twitter @andthejets  
> tumblr @arkham


End file.
